


I Spy (with my little eye)

by all15ofthem



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: First chapter of a fic that's not yet in progress, Ian being a little voyeur, M/M, One Shot, also known as The Building Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-30 23:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15106751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all15ofthem/pseuds/all15ofthem
Summary: Spying on people on the other side of the building may or may not have unexpected consequences.





	I Spy (with my little eye)

Knocking his knee into a desk made invisible by the lack of lighting on his floor, Ian loudly cursed the hippie management of the Cross Building for being all environmentally friendly and turning off the lights after 9 pm, making it impossible for employees with after-hours access badges to find their way around when they had forgotten their cellphones in their cubicles like he did. It also didn’t help that he was a bit tipsy.

He was sure there was a light switch somewhere, but as he had never before needed to access it, he had no idea where they were and was too impatient to go looking for them. Instead, Ian was muttering under his breath and smacking body parts into desks and potted plants until he finally found his way to the light coming through the large windows and the intern cubicles.

With a sigh, he flopped down into his chair, rubbing his sore knee as he glared at his phone innocently lying on top of his work laptop. He snatched it up and unlocked it, groaning as the bright light burned into his dark-adjusted eyes. Switching off his screen and swiveling around in his chair, he ended up facing the window.

His window looked out on the North wing of the Cross Building, which was built as (you guessed it) a massive cross, each wing with 35 floors of offices and their own sets of elevators opening up into a giant lobby with 4 exits. A glass building with 4 wings at a 90-degree angle of each other made for great spying on what the people in the neighbouring wing were doing, and he knew of a few people with window offices on his floor that had binoculars hidden away, and one who didn’t hide it at all. At night however, the other wings were as dark as his, with the exception of a few offices he could see people working in.

As he watched, another office light turned on in the North wing at maybe 1 or 2 floors below the equivalent of his floor. A man walked in, violently throwing his briefcase onto a chair before slamming his door shut hard enough that Ian could see the window shake a little. The man angrily took of his suit jacket and tossed it towards the briefcase as he stomped to his desk, which stood perpendicular to the window. He tapped the keyboard, turning on the 3 side-to-side screens, and blue light flooded the room. Ian wished he were one of the binocular-carrying people so he could see the expressions on the man’s face as he sat down behind his desk, his shoulders hunched, head falling heavily into his hands. The man sat like that for a few moments, just breathing, before looking up and sighing at the screens.

For the next minute or so, the man typed away, his anger seemingly subsiding as he concentrated on the screens. From his side of the window, Ian just watched, fascinated by the man’s profile, his dark hair and suit, his posture. His tipsy mind zoomed in on the man’s face, imagining his sharp eyes, the tight muscles underneath his light blue dress shirt, his long fingers flying over the keyboard and through Ian’s hair and under his shirt. His phone vibrated, and the sudden noise and his guilty conscious shocked Ian out of his fantasy. Fumbling with the device, he quickly swiped away Tara’s message and turned off the screen, hoping that the light hadn’t given away his location to the man like it had his, but the man in the North wing seemed unbothered by Ian’s phone. In fact, the man seemed ready to leave, turning off his screens and draping his suit jacket over his arm before grabbing his briefcase.

Ian jumped out of his chair, his phone in one hand as his uncoordinated mind was confronted with too many variables. He narrowed it down to 2 choices: keep gawking or leave as well, which in itself resulted in another 2 paths: follow the man or not. Picking door 2, he fumbled with his phone, trying to turn on the flashlight but first pressing the sound icon a few times until his fat fingers finally pressed the right icon. With light and sight on his side, he ran his way back to the elevators, swiping his badge angrily against the panel and willing the elevator to speed its way up already.

After an eternity, the elevator dinged and Ian squeezed through the doors even before they were completely open, jabbing the button for the first floor and repeatedly pressing the close button. The elevator didn’t care for such disrespectful treatment and closed its doors as slowly as it could, bringing Ian to the first floor with its usual speed, even as the redhead was bouncing in the moving car to help it go down the 28 floors faster. As he passed the 5th floor, Ian took a few deep breaths, shaking out his hands and checking his reflection in the mirror, pushing his hair into a semblance of order. The elevator announced the first floor, and Ian waited 2.8 seconds for the box to spread its metal walls far enough for him to walk through. He powerwalked it to the nearest exit before stopping in his tracks and walking back, past his elevators towards the exit closest to the North wing elevators, nodding politely to the security guards as he passed them.

He slowed his pace as he got to the exit, calmly pushing open the two sets of doors and walking into the outside air. Looking left and right, and left again, and then right, and back towards the lobby, and then left, he couldn’t see the man, couldn’t see any man for that matter, only two young girls walking a dog. Abandoning the option of running to the two girls and asking them if they’d seen a man with dark hair and a briefcase walk by as both ineffective and super creepy, he just stood there, rooted to the spot by his sudden inability to make a decision. Time went by, the girls and dog rounded the corner, and Ian was alone again. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, fishing his phone out of his pocket and checking Tara’s text, replying that he’d found his phone, was on his way home, to have a good weekend and that he’d see her on Monday.

He sighed in defeat, all his previous energy draining from his body, his tipsy mood turning into a headache. With a prolonged car honk, the sounds of the city came flooding back into his awareness, the smell of the Chinese restaurant on the corner making his stomach turn. As he slowly went down the steps, he fished his cheap headphones out of his pockets and untangled the wires before jamming one side into his phone and the others into his ears as he set out towards the subway. His playlist started halfway through the song he was listening to on his way to work that morning, and with one more futile look over his shoulder towards the door, he walked away.

A few seconds later, the doors opened again.

**Author's Note:**

> With lots of love to my spectacular Beta, and an early happy birthday to Julie!  
> As a fair warning to readers, I will only really start writing this fic once I'm done with M Marks the Spot. :)


End file.
